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From: wtm@neoucom.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Speaker cables
Message-ID: <692@neoucom.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 12-Sep-87 08:59:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: neoucom.692
Posted: Sat Sep 12 08:59:37 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 19-Sep-87 16:22:24 EDT
Organization: Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine
Lines: 59


Hi,

Going to the bother of making mercury filled hoses for speaker wire
seems a bit extreme.

I sort of like the idea of feeding the audio power amplifier's
output into a pair of klystron tube modulators.  The klystron beam
could then be directed at the speaker assemblies.

A number of neat possiblities exist at the speaker end.  One
possiblity would be to convert the received energy back into
electrical energy to drive speakers of "normal" design.  A second
method might be to use a piezoelectric element in the speaker which
would be directly exposed to the microwaves, and thus vibrate.  A
possible bass element could be a sheet of metalized plastic film
which would flex due to temperature changes induced by exposing the
metalization to microwaves.

The beauty of this design is that it could do double duty durring
non-critical listening sessions to keep the bread dip (or wahtever)
warm.  TV surround-sound type listeners would probably especially
appreciate this feature.

Advanced golden eared listeners could experiment with filling their
living rooms with a variety of gases to see what effects in
microwave transmission could be obtained.  The above assuming that
direct air as opposed to wave guides is used to transmit the
signal.  I don't like the idea of wave guides, as running the
signal though them might cause constricted bass :-).

I think the microwave speaker system is very elegant and intuitive,
and the inverse procedure has already been demonstrated by the
Russians to perform audio dection inside the US embassy in Moscow.

The final possibility would be a direct mind link.  There is some
percedent for this.  The fist person to try it was Aleander Bell.
In a May 24, 1875 letter to his parents, Bell describes filling his
ears with water and sticking a wire from a magneto into each ear.
Bell reported hearing "a musical note" when the magneto was
cranked.  I'll bet!!! -- It's reported that procedures similar to
this are in use in certain South American countries. :-)  Note that
the important thing here is Bell's use of the word "musical".  (For
more information, see _American_Science_and_Invention_a_Pictorial_
_History_.  Mitchell Wilson, Bonanza Books; New York, NY USA.
1960, p. 280).

Some people in the vicinity of high power microwave transmitters
used in the now obsolete D.E.W. line defensive radar have reported
hearing tones that corresponded to microwve pulse repetition rate.
Some researchers posed that the microwaves might have been directly
stimulating the audio cortex of the brain.  I don't know what was
ultimately decided on this one...

Bill Mayhew
Division of Basic Medical Sciences
Northeastern Ohio Universities' Colllege of Medicine
Rootstown, OH  44272-9989  USA    phone:  216-325-2511
(wtm@neoucom.UUCP   ...!cbatt!neoucom!wtm)